The present invention relates to systems and methods for dynamically exchanging information electronically using an Electronic Communication Network. More particularly, the present invention relates to creating and managing personalized experiences for Visitors to a network Enterprise Site to create and maintain a dynamic virtual mutual relationship between an electronic expert system emulating a real world Enterprise Expert and the Visitor. Most particularly, the present invention relates to such systems applied to electronic commerce and specifically to electronic marketing applications.
Traditional mediums of marketing and advertising have all been inherently broadcast. A message delivered on radio, television, billboards, magazines and the like is delivered to a broad base of individuals. The information received in this manner is identical to all individuals. For example, every person who opens a particular issue of a magazine or views a television advertisement sees exactly the same information. Using this traditional broadcast media, the marketer has only been able to deliver personalized messages to a broad base. For example, the marketer targets readers of a science magazine based on the facts that the readership is largely university educated with an interest in science and has a particular range of income.
With the advent of computer-driven electronic spaces, such as computer networks, and in particular the Internet, the opportunity now exists for delivering visitor information in a completely xe2x80x9csoftxe2x80x9d medium, i.e., where all components of information are delivered under software control. This is in contrast to delivering information in a xe2x80x9chardxe2x80x9d format, such as through traditional print advertisements. A medium such as the Internet is inherently non-broadcast. For the first time in history, an inherently non-broadcast medium is available to fulfill the marketer""s dream of true xe2x80x9cone-to-onexe2x80x9d personalization. Although banner spaces used on the Internet for advertising and the like are essentially broadcast in nature, electronic spaces offer, by way of software control, the possibility of targeting individuals uniquely, thereby permitting the delivery of personalized information to the individual.
Marketing on the Internet has thus far consisted primarily of providing advertisements to web site visitors in an essentially broadcast manner. As illustrated in FIG. 14, typical electronic advertising systems include an advertisement server 1 which contains advertisements 3 provided by content providers 5. Individuals visiting web sites 7, 7xe2x80x2, and 7xe2x80x3 are shown advertisements 3 which are transmitted from the advertisement server 1 to the web sites 7, 7xe2x80x2, and 7xe2x80x3 over the Internet 8. New advertisements 3 are typically selected at established intervals to replace those being shown to the visitor. While these advertisements 3 are often shown randomly to the visitor, they may be selected based on information which is known about the visitor, such as when facts about the visitor have been stored in a profile database 9.
Typically, when a visitor selects an advertisement 3, such as by clicking on an advertisement banner using a mouse, the visitor is sent to the advertiser""s web site. Generally, the web site owner is compensated for displaying the advertisements 3 and is additionally compensated each time a visitor clicks on an advertisement 3. To the extent that advertisements 3 on an owner""s web site 7, 7xe2x80x2, or 7xe2x80x3 are not inconsistent with the interests of the owner, the owner is not generally concerned with the content of the advertisements 3. This is similar to traditional broadcast advertising in magazines.
As noted, some companies offer advertisement-server technology which utilize systems involving profiles in order to personalize electronic marketing. Profiles, which can be edited and are often updated by tracking the behavior of individuals on the World Wide Web, can be used to determine the particular advertisements, including their background, coloration, etc. that an individual will experience when visiting a web site. As an individual navigates a web site, provides information, and makes purchases, her profile is updated accordingly, thereby allowing for a more customized visitation experience. However, such systems are very limited in their ability to provide the visitor with a unique visitation experience as they are limited to comparing and matching information contained in various databases (e.g., a profile database and an advertisement database). These systems are also limited to advertising. Their purpose is not to manage the relationship or personalize the experience directly with the Ad hosting sites 7, 7xe2x80x2, and 7xe2x80x3.
For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,811 (Angles et al.) describes a system for delivering customized electronic advertisements in an interactive communication system. The customized advertisements are selected based on consumer profiles and are then integrated at different web sites. The consumer provides data which is used to establish her profile. When the consumer selects content on a web site, an advertising request is sent to an advertisement provider computer which then generates a custom advertisement based on the consumer""s profile.
Customized advertising is also described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,948,061, assigned to DoubleClickSM, Inc. This patent essentially uses data from a user profile to select an appropriate advertisement from a data bank of advertisements most appropriate to display to the user. This system requires an advertising server, a content provider, a user mode, an affiliate web site, and an advertising web site. When a user visits a web page which is affiliated with the advertising server, the affiliated page includes an embedded reference to an object provided by the advertising server which causes the advertising server to provide the advertising image which will appear on the web page displayed by the user""s browser. The server uses information about the user which is passed on by the browser to select an appropriate advertisement for the particular user. Data is compiled about the user, such as the user""s name, Internet Protocol address, domain type, time zone, location, particular advertisements seen, and the number of times each are seen. This data is then compared with various ads to select an appropriate match.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 5,717,923, assigned to Intel(copyright) Corporation, describes another method of Ad serving. This method includes customizing electronic information, such as advertisements, to the preferences of an individual user. This method compares user preference data in a user profile database to a unit of electronic information to generate a customized unit of electronic advertising information. The user profile is updated using a client activity monitor which allows for further customization of electronic information.
The aforementioned advertising systems do not allow for particularly effective personalized marketing. They are very limited in their ability to present the user with a customized web site visitation experience, relying primarily on correlating particular advertisements with certain information known about the visitor. Customization of the visitation experience is limited to utilizing information contained in a profile database, which may be updated as the visitor navigates the web site. However, advertising is but a small part, and even not the most important part, of a visitation experience. As an example, what is more important when visiting a web store is the web store itself, not the advertising therein. The goal of one-to-one marketing on the web is not to focus on the advertisements of a web site, but on the visitor experience at the site itself.
To date, efforts to create computer-driven network systems to manage personalized relationships in electronic space have suffered from the failure to apply the right technology to the problem. Such systems are unable to provide personalized visitation experiences to web site visitors which mirror the experiences those visitors would have in the real world. Human interaction as it occurs naturally between individuals is extraordinarily complex and involves aspects of human intelligence such as reasoning, memory, behavior, and perception. Indeed, successful and mutually rewarding relationships often involve exploiting these aspects. Translating features of a successful mutual relationship to a virtual place, such as over a computer network, to create and foster virtual mutual relationships is a very complex task. The technology that allows this problem to be realistically tackled is artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Artificial intelligence systems have been employed in attempting to provide personalized marketing to visitors of web sites. However, these attempts have been largely inadequate. For example, neural network systems, a form of artificial intelligence, have been used for personalized electronic marketing. Such systems attempt to emulate a thinking brain and must be trained in order to process the information with which they are presented. While they are artificial intelligence systems, they are not expert or rules-based systems, i.e., they do not use inferencing engines to apply a set of rules to sets of facts or represented semantically modeled information to obtain reasoned results. For instance, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,774,868 and 5,504,675 (both to Cragun et al.), both assigned to International Business Machines(copyright), describe sales promotion systems which utilize neural networks. In the ""868 patent, a trained neural network is used to recommend product purchases to consumers by grouping products into categories and then analyzing which products a consumer has purchased from that category. The ""675 patent describes a system wherein data is collected relating to the success of various sales programs. The collected data is applied to a trained neural network so that the neural network can select the most appropriate sales program to run.
Additionally, there are companies which offer systems which tailor the visitation experiences of customers by applying business rules to customer profiles. While these companies may claim to offer systems which use reasoning capabilities similar to that of a salesperson in order to better understand a visitor and provide a unique visitation experience, these systems lack sufficient artificial intelligence components to effectively establish virtual mutual relationships that are based on aspects of human interaction. These systems do not use expert systems technology and lack the sophistication of this technology.
Companies such as Net Perceptions(copyright) (www.netperceptions.com) and Athenium(trademark) offer electronic marketing technology which uses a form of an artificial intelligence technique known as collaborative filtering. This is a statistical inferencing technique that attempts to infer the preferences of individuals by associating them with like individuals, for example. U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,014 (Robinson) describes an automated collaborative filtering system for use in World Wide Web advertising. In this system, statistical inferencing is employed to group of persons displaying similar likes and dislikes into communities. If the members of a subject""s community tend to click on a particular web advertisement, then it is inferred that it is likely that the subject will tend to click on that advertisement. Using this information, selected advertisements are presented to the individual. One of the features of this system is determining the communities that individuals belong to based on statistical analysis.
Another use of statistical inferencing techniques is found in the back-end statistical inferencing used in data mining. Companies offering data mining systems gather and analyze data on individuals in order to group individuals according to similarities. Once individuals have been grouped, inferences are drawn regarding the products, services, etc. that will appeal to an individual based on choices made by other individuals in the same group.
While collaborative filtering, data mining, and the use of neural networks provide useful and sophisticated tools for segmentation, they are limited to but a small aspect of the problems associated with one-to-one marketing in a non-broadcast media such as the World Wide Web. As we have seen, advertisement serving technology is limited to the xe2x80x9cforeign contextxe2x80x9d aspect of a visitation experience and is very much like traditional broadcast advertising, simply applied on-line. What is desired is the application of technology that will achieve the effect of an on-line cyber-salesperson in all aspects of its complexity. The xe2x80x9cbrain emulationxe2x80x9d techniques offered by neural networks and collaborative filtering are technologies that are too immature to emulate the type of sophisticated human behavior required in such a salesperson.
Another weakness of these technologies is that the relationship with the user is completely one-sided. The user is watched, data is collected, and users are compared and then broadcast to, etc. However, there is absolutely no involvement from the user.
Thus, until now, personalized marketing using the Internet has not been particularly successful. The system approaches taken have been either too limited in their outlook, have used inappropriate underlying technology, i.e., no AI, or have applied an ineffective or inefficient AI technology.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system which can be used on a computer-driven network which provides for the creation and maintenance of personalized experiences and which establishes and augments virtual mutual relationships. There is further a need for such a system which is intelligent, yet is user friendly and relatively inexpensive. Still further, there is a need for a system which can approach the level of sophistication of a cyber-salesperson through the correct application of available artificial intelligence technology. The present invention is directed towards meeting these and other needs.
The present invention includes the application of rules-based and expert systems artificial intelligence technology to computer-driven network systems which permit the User, i.e., a Visitor, to experience a personalized Virtual Visit to a Virtual Place. In contrast to neural networks and collaborative filtering systems, expert systems technology focuses on emulating captured expert knowledge and reasoning rather than emulating the brain. The expert systems of the present invention emulate Real World Experts. The personalized experience of such a visit permits the creation, management and fostering of a virtual mutual relationship between the Visitor and an electronic Enterprise Expert whereby the satisfaction of needs or interests can be fulfilled, much in the same manner ordinary human interaction occurs. In a typical visit, various components of the system interact to: (i) target the visitor; (ii) dynamically alter the content displayed to the visitor; and (iii) dynamically optimize the overall experience of the visitation, among other things.
A primary goal of such a personalized experience over an Electronic Communication Network is to establish a mutual relationship between an Enterprise Expert, for example a virtual salesperson, a virtual librarian, a virtual physician and the like, and the Virtual Visitor, i.e. the Virtual Representative of the actual User. For example, the Virtual Visitor might be the Virtual Representative of an actual User who is using a personal computer connected to the Internet to access an electronic site which deploys the methods and systems of the present invention. By establishing a virtual mutual relationship, meaningful interaction which is intended to emulate that of one-on-one human interaction transpires. The ability to develop the loyalty, trust, and satisfaction of the customer, which in the above example is the personal computer User, is a skill which most good sales and marketing people possess. Balanced against obtaining customer satisfaction and promoting goodwill is accomplishing the goals of the Enterprise, which in the context of e-commerce or e-marketing is the selling of goods or services. The present invention seeks to develop and maintain a mutual relationship based on these relationship attributes through the personalization of the visitation experience as well as by allowing a User control over her Virtual Representative.
In one aspect of the present invention is provided a method for dynamically creating and managing mutual relationships between a virtual visitor and a virtual enterprise expert on an electronic network which includes the steps of: (i) Providing a virtual population, the semantic model of which is rendered specific to one or more real world populations, the virtual population comprising instances of said model; (ii) Providing expert system software which effects a virtual enterprise expert, where the software is tailored to a particular virtual population; and (iii) Applying the expert system software to an instance of the semantic model to create a unique virtual visitation experience. This method may employ one or more computer systems which include one or more user site computers, one or more visit site computers, and one or more population site computers.
This method may also include the step of providing a billing system which is capable of billing based on rule success and/or successful use of real world visitor identification, the real world visitor identification including identification of population instances, identification with specific facts, identification with custom facts, and identification with some number of facts.
In another aspect of the present invention is provided a method for dynamically creating and managing mutual relationships between a virtual visitor and a virtual enterprise expert on an electronic network which includes the steps of: (i) Providing a virtual population, the semantic model of which is rendered specific to one or more real world populations, the virtual population comprising instances of the model; (ii) Providing software accessible to a real world enterprise expert, the software permitting the real world expert to create one or more expert rules which can be applied to instances of the semantic model; (iii) Providing expert system software which effects a virtual enterprise expert, the software tailored to a particular virtual population; and (iv) Applying the expert system software to an instance of the semantic model to create a unique virtual visitation experience in accordance with the real world expert rules, the interests and/or desires of the visitor, and the expert knowledge of the expert system software. This method may further include web-based versions of a rule editor, a report generator, and/or a content management system.
In a further aspect of the present invention is provided a system for dynamically creating and managing mutual relationships between a virtual visitor and a virtual enterprise expert on an electronic network which includes: (i) A virtual population, the semantic model of which is rendered specific to one or more real world populations, the virtual population including instances of the model; (ii) Software accessible to a real world enterprise expert, the software permitting the real world expert to create one or more expert rules which can be applied to instances of the semantic model; and (iii) Expert system software which effects a virtual enterprise expert, the software tailored to a particular virtual population, wherein the application of the expert system software to an instance of the semantic model creates a unique virtual visitation experience in accordance with the real world rules, the interests and/or desires of the visitor, and the expert knowledge of the expert system software.
In a further aspect of the present invention is provided a system for conducting real-time dynamic marketing on the Internet which includes: (i) A web site which contains information which can be dynamically altered and made available to a web site visitor; (ii) Expert system software which effects a virtual enterprise expert, the software tailored to a particular virtual population; and (iii) A stored, retrievable, and updateable virtual population accessible through a machine-readable database, the semantic model of which is rendered specific to one or more real world populations, the virtual population comprising instances of said model.
In a still further aspect of the present invention is provided a system for creating and maintaining a virtual mutual relationship, the system being accessed by a user through a network by one or more networked computers which includes: (i) A database comprising a richly semantically modeled virtual population; (ii) One or more expert systems in communication with the database and the software associated with a network site, the expert systems(s) being capable of performing at least one or more of the following tasks: (a) applying expert rules to instances of the semantically modeled population to produce a reasoned result; (b) applying expert system knowledge to instances of the semantically modeled population to produce a reasoned result; (c) observing and understanding its own activity; (d) learning new information as such information is generated; (e) creating new expert rules automatically; and (f) reporting on (a)-(e) above.
For purposes of this invention the following definitions apply:
Application Program Interface (API)
This is a standard term used to describe a programmer access mechanism to supplied software.
Electronic Communication Network
Any electronic environment that allows communications between computing devices, and/or computing access devices of any sort. Examples are an Internet Protocol network, a cable network, a kiosk network, a telephone network, a satellite network, or the World Wide Web. Computing devices and computing access devices include personal computers, touch sensitive screens, web TV, touch-tone telephones, personal digital systems, Virtual Reality equipment such as gloves, head gear, clothing, sensory devices and the like, dumb terminals, Java virtual machines, or any other electronic communication device. Networks include, but are not limited to, Internets, Intranets, Extranets, Local Area Networks, Wide Area Networks, and combinations thereof.
Desirable, the Electronic Communication Network used in the present invention may be a private IP network, a public IP network, the World Wide Web, or a combination of public and private IP networks.
Enabled Site
An Enterprise Site which has deployed the technology as described herein on a computing device in an electronic network. The computing device can be distributed and made available to multiple Users. The system of the current invention allows for maximum flexibility in terms of networked deployment of its components.
Enterprise and Customer
The organizational entity which uses its Site to reach Visitors for the purpose of furthering its goals. The Enterprise owner is the Customer or User of most aspects of the present invention. For example, the Enterprise mentioned in numerous examples herein are electronic library, e-commerce store, and virtual town X.
Enterprise Expert
A Virtual Expert which has expertise in the goals and/or business of any particular Enterprise. For example, a cyber-librarian is an expert about books, libraries, library searches, etc. As another example, the enterprise expert may be an e-commerce expert. For instance, a cyber-salesperson is an expert about selling the goods and services of a business Enterprise or market area. This expert is effected by an expert system using expert system and related AI and other software technologies. The Enterprise Expert may be deployed on a third-party hosted computer.
Population Expert
A Virtual Expert which applies expert knowledge of a population to achieve additional knowledge about the population for future reasoning thereon. Such knowledge is represented and augmented in the Virtual Population. A Virtual Population might be a population of library users, professionals, consumers, travelers, etc. On the other hand, the ultimately rendered Semantic Model would simply be xe2x80x9cpersonxe2x80x9d and include views of different facets of a person. For example, one can be both a consumer, a professional, and a traveler.
Real Estate
User interface areas which can vary under software control. These areas are components of the Virtual Place of a particular Enterprise. An example would be the varying areas on web pages representing the sections of an on-line department store. These areas will vary under intelligent software control, responding to the individuality of the virtual consumer entering the store. Another example would be the rooms in a 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality library, the shelves on display there, or versions of them in dark and light wood.
Real World Expert
The real world equivalent of a particular expert system. For example, a salesman is the Real World Expert that corresponds to a cyber-salesperson.
Semantic Model
A model rich in semantics rendered using artificial intelligence (Al) techniques, referred to herein as a xe2x80x9cRich Semantic Modelxe2x80x9d. Such models are used to solve problems typically associated with those requiring human intelligence. Semantic Modeling is a part of the toolset of AI technology. In the present invention, Semantic Models may vary to suit the goals of the Enterprise. For example, income may be less important in the model of a library Visitor than it would be in the model of a consumer. The Semantic Model may, for example, be a model of consumers. Also, the Semantic Model may include facts which reflect whether the real world visitor is a known or anonymous visitor.
The Semantic Model may contain facts such as universal facts, enterprise-specific facts, custom enterprise-specific facts, and facts which are restricted for use by the real world user. Universal facts are facts which are potentially available to all enterprises or customers, e.g., xe2x80x9cnamexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cgenderxe2x80x9d. There is no reason to restrict this type of fact to a particular enterprise or enterprise class (e.g., retail or travel enterprise classes). Enterprise-specific facts are facts which are useful to any particular enterprise but which differ for each enterprise. For example, xe2x80x9cnumber of visitsxe2x80x9d for each of multiple e-Stores may have a different value. Therefore, such facts are enterprise or customer specific, although all enterprises use it. Custom enterprise-specific facts are facts which are of particular use to a particular customer. For example, xe2x80x9cair milesxe2x80x9d is a fact which contains air mile rewards, but only a particular airline has xe2x80x9cair milesxe2x80x9d.
Site
The physical location where components of the Electronic Communications Network reside. The place where a Virtual Place, Virtual Population, or Visitor is located. For example, a Virtual Population may exist at a data center at one Site, and a Visitor may be at home using a personal computer attached to the World Wide Web at another. A Virtual Reality holiday cruise ship may reside on the computers at yet another Site.
Storage Medium
Any medium capable of having electronic information stored thereon and retrieved therefrom. Examples include hard disks, tapes, compact discs, and the like.
Virtual Expert or Cyber-Expert
A virtual electronic expert which has been created by the use of AI expert systems technology.
Virtual Place
A Virtual Visitation location which is representative of a place in the real world. Examples include a Virtual Reality game space, the on-line Library of Congress, Jane Smith""s home page, or Amazon.com on the World Wide Web. Any web site is a Virtual Place.
Virtual Population
A group of Virtual Representatives who fit the Semantic Model which suits the goals of a particular Enterprise, such as an electronic store, library, etc. For example, consumers, members of a library, members of an association, etc. constitute Virtual Populations. They are desirably stored, retrievable, and updateable through a machine-readable database and are richly semantically modeled. The Virtual Population may be stored, retrievable, and updateable at a site where the Virtual Population resides.
Virtual Reality
The technology of today and the future that attempts to create as complete an experience of computer-rendered spaces as possible, such as allowing 3-Dimensional, sound, and tactile interfaces. The World Wide Web will become more sophisticated as known Virtual Reality technology is deployed on networks of increasing bandwidth. The Web, as it exists for the most part for most people today, is essentially Virtual Reality technology in its infancy.
Virtual Visit
The experience of the real world Visitor visiting a Virtual Place. The set of electronic events that comprise the visit.
Virtual Visitor, Virtual Representative
An instance of the Virtual Population which functions as a Virtual Representative for the Visitor. The Virtual Visitor functions as a Virtual Representative for the real world User at an Enabled Site.
Visitor, User
The real world User of a Visitor Access Device. The real world person represented by a Virtual Representative.
Visitor Access Device
A computer or computing access device.
Visitor Expert
An expert that manages the relationship between the Visitor and the Visitor""s Virtual Representative. This expert is an expert on the Virtual Population Semantic Model and interacts on a one-to-one basis with Visitors to effect modifications of the Virtual Representative of the Visitor.